Last year, my fiancée and I welcomed a beautiful baby girl into our lives, and around that same time, my fiancée became glued to her phone. Was she watching YouTube videos on how to calm a crying baby, or was she asking ChatGPT why our daughter struggled to latch onto her left breast? Because in those early days after we brought her home, that baby tested every ounce of patience we had left. On some days, she seemed determined to drain every bit of energy from us, and whenever she finally fell asleep, we grabbed whatever little rest came our way.

But at night, my fiancée didn’t sleep. She started acting out of character, always on her phone, smiling and giggling at something. She took it everywhere with her, even to the bathroom. Later, I found out she had been texting her ex. When I told her I didn’t like it, she would flare up and say, “He’s my ex, not my enemy. Can’t I talk to him again?” and then she’d follow it with demeaning insults. She knew I would never insult her back or raise my hand at her, so every concern I expressed was dismissed as if it meant nothing.

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Then last month, in April, I picked up her phone while she wasn’t around and opened a WhatsApp conversation between her and one of her exes, and things went downhill after that. My baby was crying in the background of a call they had just made, and the man asked her why he always heard a baby crying whenever he called her. My fiancée replied, “Oh, that? It’s my niece. She just likes crying.” He would tell her to go and soothe the baby, and she would laugh it off and say the child would be fine. All that time, while I was at work trying to provide for our family, she left my baby to cry and cry. Even worse, the man believed every lie she told him, and they continued their conversations as if nothing was wrong.

Can you imagine that this man was asking my fiancée for nude pictures? What hurt me even more was that she promised she would send them later. I kept thinking about what could have happened if I had never picked up her phone and read those messages, because she probably would have gone through with it. As I read their chats, I cried like a baby. Every conversation revolved around love, sex, kissing, and all sorts of intimate things that should never have existed between them.

When I confronted her and asked why she was doing all this, why she couldn’t let go of her ex and move on with her life, she responded, ‘We are only playing around.”  I knew that wasn’t true, and at that moment, I felt like she was playing with my mind.

I took the man’s number from her phone and contacted him myself, begging him to stay away from my fiancée because we were planning to get married and I didn’t want any obstacles between us. To my surprise, he apologised and revealed a lot. He truly didn’t know she was in a relationship, and he had no idea that the crying voice belonged to our daughter. She had told him the baby belonged to her elder sister, and he felt terrible about the whole situation.

Since the day she got pregnant, I have been the one taking care of her. I supported her throughout the pregnancy, paid hospital bills, bought everything she needed, and continued providing for both her and our daughter after the birth. I even paid the traditional items required because we were not yet married, including the schnapps and everything else expected of me, and I did all of that because I am not an irresponsible man.

I was sitting quietly in the living room when she came to meet me, her face frowned and screaming, “What kind of man are you? I regret having your baby, it was a mistake, I should have terminated it. Is it a crime to be the mother of your baby?” It turns out her ex, the one I had contacted, had called to question her.

Hearing those words did something to my ego as a man, and it broke me down to the floor. Hearing the woman you planned on spending your life with say something like that to you doesn’t harden you, it breaks you forever, and she spoke like it was an easy thing to say. She also threatened me, “Call him and tell him everything you told him was a lie,” because she wanted money from her ex and that was why she was doing all of this.

It became clear that she wanted money from him, and that was one of the reasons she was keeping the whole thing going. I was stunned. “Don’t I provide for you? Haven’t I always been there whenever you needed something? So why all this?” She had no answer. Instead, she started giving me instructions. “You call and tell him the baby isn’t yours and you are my elder brother.” Also she warned me that if I refused, she would make sure I never saw my daughter again, that she would block me everywhere and cut off all contact. It is no secret that I worship the ground she walks on, so she treats me like a toy, but that is something I cannot do. It looks like she is working on her threat because I have been calling her for the umpteenth time since the incident, and there is no response. Whenever I use another number and she realises it’s me, she blocks that one too.

I haven’t told my family because I already know what they will say. They will tell me to walk away from her, but I love my daughter and I don’t want to lose her. I haven’t told her family either because her elder brother would probably confront her, and I don’t want things to escalate into something worse.

Men Don’t Like It When Women Do The Paying

Right now, I feel completely lost. I’ve stayed indoors for days, crying and replaying everything in my head, and I don’t know what to do anymore. The woman I loved has turned my life upside down, and the only thing I keep thinking about is my daughter.

I am exhausted. I am heartbroken. And for the first time in my life, I feel like a very weak man.

—Richard

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